Seven Cult Favorite American
Sodas
By Sara
Churchville Apr 01, 2011 12:00 pm / Minyanville
‘Ever try an Ale8? How
about a Moxie? Your answer will depend on where you call home. The USDA's
Dietary Guidelines for Americans seem to be making a dent at last, if the
latest Beverage Digest dispatch from the cola wars is any indication. For the
sixth year in a row, total volume of sales for the carbonated soft drinks
industry was down, although total moneys made – thanks to higher prices –
were up from last year. Although there are more Americans with each passing
year, they drink fewer sodas per capita. And when they do drink it,
increasingly it's diet. The Coca-Cola Co. (KO) is still holding onto 42 percent
of the domestic market, far outpacing Pepsi's (PEP) 29.3 percent and Dr. Pepper
Snapple's (DPS) 16.7. Nor are Coke's century-old rivals likely to make up the
shortfall overseas, where Coke already has a stranglehold. It's No. 1 in China
although that country makes many of its own soft drinks. (And the situation is
even stranger, or sadder, in Africa. Read Soft Drinks -- A Weapon Against
Malnutrition in Africa?, here.) To knock Coke off its pedestal, a new soda
would have to have Coke's aggressive reach. For now, only China and India have
the population and only China the reach to present a viable competitor -- and
they both love Coke. While the brand seems fairly entrenched as the
best-selling soft drink ever, world without end, amen -- its sales are
nevertheless declining while much smaller sectors' are growing. Four of the top
10 soda brands by market share in 2010 were diet sodas, with regular Pepsi
tumbling far enough to usher the plateaued Diet Coke forward as the second-most
popular soda in the US. The growth winners are Diet Mountain Dew and Diet Dr.
Pepper and their high-fructose counterparts, as well as Sprite and Fanta. This
change suggests not only that consumers are easing up on the HFCS in some
areas, but that they're looking for flavor. Specifically, according to Beverage
Digest, “citrus is gaining.” Also gaining the market share that Coke and
Pepsi are losing is National Beverage Co. (FIZZ) which distributes Shasta and
other off-brand sodas, and Hansen Natural (HANS), which makes its own sodas
with cane sugar and natural flavors. National Beverage uses what it calls
“regional share dynamics” to target certain flavors to certain regions and
demographics. For the moment, this means it sells very sweet sodas like Genuine
Faygo Dee-licious Redpop in places where they call it “pop,” and LaCroix
sparkling water in places with redwoods. Theoretically, though, it can expand
this concept to include copying -- or buying -- not only various regional
syrups but drinks with potential mass appeal; borderline-medicinal drinks like
kombucha soft drinks, for example, or the Chinese herbal tea soda Wong Lo Kat.
Hansen is also poised to take increasing advantage of a gradual shift away from
junk food, or at least toward one or two ingredients that seem to justify the
rest of the drink: sugar rather than HFCS, natural citrus flavors, real fruit
and herbs, and healthy additives like plant sterols or water-soluble vitamins.
If Hansen's could, in short, find a way to mass-produce artisanal soda brands
like Jones and Reed's, it could conceivably continue to gain market ground. But
oust Coke? No time soon.
No way around it, Coca-Cola (KO) is the No.
1 soft drink in the US and has been more or less since John Pemberton first introduced
his cola syrup panacea in an Atlanta pharmacy in 1886. But for all its hegemony
-- the soda dominates 17% of the domestic carbonated soft drink market, nearly
the same amount as No. 2 Diet Coke and No. 3 Pepsi (PEP) combined
-- Coke wasn't the first and still isn't the only sparkling beverage to keep a
nostalgic grip on certain regional palates. In some parts of the country, folks
still drink cola that predates Coke. In others, a certain historic connection
or unique flavor keeps these cult soft drinks, none younger than 75 years, on
local shelves.
Here's a look at seven sodas favored in specific regions of the US.
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Maine's official soft drink was drummed up by Maine native Dr. Augustin Thompson in 1884, a year before Dr. Pepper (DPS) was created and two years before Coke came into being. Like Coke, Moxie started out as a snake oil. Thompson called it “Moxie Nerve Food” and claimed it would cure anything. The secret of the somewhat bitter flavor was – and is – gentian root. It may have lost its local market share to the interloping Coke, but Moxie will always be the first Maine cola. |
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The Carolina Beverage Company first began selling this cherry-flavored, red-wine-colored soda in 1917 in Salisbury, N.C., where the founder's great-grandson runs it today. Among his recent ideas for dragging the nostalgic drink into the present -- a limited promotion with Krispy Kreme (KKD) for Cheerwine-filled donuts. |
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In 1919, as the dry season kicked off in Chicago and Al Capone found his sea legs, one local brewer came up with a way to make lemonade out of Prohibition's lemons. Limeade, as it happens. Schoenhofen Brewery concocted a green soda made of limes that it sold both in bottles and as fountain syrup around town. These days, there's a run on the speakeasy-era soda around St. Patrick's Day. |
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First made in Cuba in 1920, this sweet drink is made from extract of the South American herb yerba mate. Newly socialist Cuba took over the company in 1960 and sold it in 1965 to Cawy, the Miami bottling company that still produces the drink today. Like Cuban coffee, the soda offers Miami Cubans a gastronomic cord to their pre-Castro homeland. Check out the fan's page on Facebook, here. |
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If there's no Frostop root beer stand on Route 66, by gosh, there oughta be. The stands and later a chain of drive-ins sprung up in Springfield, Ohio, in 1926 and spread to various pointsin the Midwest and South. Still sold in the distinctive brown bottle in some spots, Frostop is available on tap at the remaining 1950s boulevard-of-broken-dreams franchises, such as the one in LaPlace, La. |
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It has its own derby, its own bourbon industry and, yes, Kentucky has its own soft drink: Ale-8-One. G.L. Wainscott of Winchester began making the ginger-hinted soda for his neighbors in 1926. Today, Wainscott's great-great nephew runs the company. Apart from appealing to pride of place, among Kentuckians Ale-8 has the merit of mixing well with Maker's Mark. |
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Commonly paired with a cult Tennessee treat, the moon pie, the Royal Crown Cola was created by a Georgia chemist in 1934. He tweaked a formula first created in 1905 by a pharmacist in Columbus, Ga., birthplace of the man who'd originated Coke about 20 years earlier. Unable to come to terms with Coke's bottling company, the chemist started his own competing one. RC was the first to distribute soda in cans. Today, you can't partake of the blue-collar duo of delicacies without at least a small degree of irony, even in the South. BONUS: In America's regions, you'll also find unique ways of describing a carbonated beverage: Check out this Soda versus Pop versus Coke map of the United States. |
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